Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the covering-up of failures by an NHS watchdog to properly investigate baby deaths should never have happened.

The Care Quality Commission has been accused of destroying their own report into maternity units that were part of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

An independent investigation found the CQC failed to properly inspect the Morecambe Bay Trust, where up to 16 babies died.

Joshua Titcombe died in Furness General Hospital after staff failures

In one of a raft of measures the government plans to prevent problems in the future, Mr Hunt said President Obama's former health adviser Prof Don Berwick was being taken on to ensure a new safety culture.

The Health Secretary, in a statement to the House of Commons, said: "What happened at Morecambe Bay is above all a terrible personal tragedy for all the families involved.

"I want to apologise on behalf of the Government for all the appalling suffering they have endured.

"A culture in the NHS had been allowed to develop where defensiveness and secrecy were put ahead of patient safety and care. Today I want to ... ensure this kind of cover-up never happens again.

"Events at Morecombe Bay and many other hospitals should never have been covered up, but they should never have happened either."

Concerns were first raised in 2008, but in 2010 the CQC gave the trust, which serves 365,000 people in South Cumbria and North Lancashire, a clean bill of health.

Wednesday's report suggests that CQC bosses were so concerned about protecting the watchdog's reputation that they ordered an internal review to be deleted because it showed that their original inspection was flawed.

Mr Hunt said a number of actions were being taken to prevent problems occurring in the future.

He said he had every confidence in the two bosses that had recently been appointed at the CQC to put the changes that were necessary into place.

He said the CQC would appoint three new inspectors, there would be a new Chief Inspector of Hospitals and a new regulatory approach would put in place Ofsted-style ratings so people could know how well their local hospital was performing.

He said failure by hospital administrators to adhere to new requirements could result in criminal prosecution.

Andy Burnham, the shadow Health Secretary, said: "Today's report will leave people stunned. What is never acceptable is when people try to hide ... mistakes.

"Today's report says the order to cover up may constitute a broader cover-up.

"I would like to ask the Health Secretary, ... is anybody who was involved in the decision to delete still working at the CQC or anywhere else in the NHS?

"If they are, people will find it hard to accept that. This matter doesn't end with the deletion of the report."

Joshua Titcombe died in 2008 aged just nine-days-old in Furness General Hospital, one of the hospitals overseen by Morcambe Bay NHS Trust, after staff failed to spot and treat an infection.

Earlier, his father James had described the report into the cover-up as "shocking".

"It embodies everything that is wrong with the culture in the NHS. It's something that's been rotten really about the system," he said.

"We need it to change. We need that culture to change. Patient safety should be the number one priority, and organisations that work within regulation need to be aligned with that principle."

Responding to the report's findings, the regulator said: "We let people down, and we apologise for that."

New CQC chairman David Prior said: "The publication draws a line in the sand for us. What happened in the past was wholly unacceptable.

"The report confirms our view that at a senior level the organisation was dysfunctional. The board and the senior executive team have been radically changed."

The CQC, which faces at least 30 civil negligence claims, is to be subject to a public inquiry.